


Leave, My Love, But Take My Heart With You

by AvaCelt



Series: Midnight Piper [3]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Gen, Gore, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 06:09:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaCelt/pseuds/AvaCelt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a small flame that should cast a shadow on the white wall behind Wu Fan, but when he turns around, he sees nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave, My Love, But Take My Heart With You

“You threatened the world’s most prolific serial killer in almost a hundred years,” Burrows drawls, taking another long drag of his cigarette.

Park rolls his eyes and pours himself a tumbler of brandy. “Yagami wrote the script. I just delivered it because I’m pretty.”

“And uncannily tall,” Yagami adds, tapping the up button for the volume, letting Park’s recorded deep voice fill the hotel room like the scent of perfume, strong and heavy.

“I’m always making the announcements,” Park grumbles. “I understand my voice is manlier than both of yours put together, but I’d like to not be the first one disemboweled on the streets the second I leave the hotel’s parking garage without an escort.”

“Or dismembered,” Burrows points out, his cigarette dangling from the bud of his bottom lip.

“I’d like to see him try,” Yagami admits.

Regardless of their banter, they all silently agree that yes, they would like to see it try. It being the Midnight Piper.

Shuya Yagami is twenty-eight years old, a native of Osaka, and one of the brightest officers of the island-composite nation. His occasional run-ins with Interpol occur when his cases dictate he call his contacts in their field office in Bangkok. He’s spent the last eleven years of his life following the footsteps of his mother, a retired police officer who worked in special victims. He’s brilliant. He’s handsome. His voice lilts when he talks, and his soothing gestures are a godsend, and women and men alike fall at his feet almost as naturally as criminals do. His biggest catch is Gorn Bregcrift, the deformed poison prince whose concoctions presented death to politicians and criminals as beautifully as a woman did herself during her nuptials. Gorn was, and always would be, Shuya’s only catch that didn’t involve trafficking. Shuya liked to hunt those things better than Gorn’s petty kind, but Gorn was different. Gorn _is_  different. His birthday is coming up, and Shuya would like to make it back to Paris by the end of the month to see him before La Santè locked him away into solitary again for the rest of the year.

Porter Burrows is a Nebraskan native, thirty-six, and a connoisseur of the smoky arts (meaning cigars and cigarettes, with the occasional doobie thrown in). He once tried e-cigarettes, and spent the day vomiting in the toilet while Park rubbed his back. He began his tenure in the police force when he was twenty-three and much more impressionable than most young men his age. After his first dead body, things changed, and Porter realized he was much more at ease when he was partially high on some substance or another, not that he let his colleagues know. His biggest case was his last one in the States, and after Andy Longfellow was officially sentenced to death for his thirty-one murders of various couples and families, Porter applied to get pushed into Interpol. He did, and that’s the end of it. He’s spent the last four years working on ritual murders in the Scottish highlands while spending random weeks profiling the Midnight Piper. He wishes he were back in his hut in Edinburgh.

Chanyeol Park is twenty-six, bored half the time, and incredibly fast. He considers himself a city rat of Seoul, and takes things as seriously as Yagami does, except Yagami’s smile is much creepier than his. But Chanyeol is quick in the most useful of ways, but in his six short years as an officer and a bodyguard, he’s yet to find his biggest catch. He blames the bodyguarding gig for ruining his chances in nabbing that rapist that prowled one of the lower mountains that he used to hike in, but then a call had come in a month earlier that said the Interpol field office in South Korea would need to send in a host of detectives to assist the Swedes in their Piper dilemma, and Chanyeol found himself on a plane faster than that time he had to pee after pushing the Japanese emperor’s forty year old son out of the range of a whizzing bullet. Needless to say, Chanyeol needs this catch or otherwise his ledger remains devoid of a crowning achievement, llike the ones his colleagues have. Burrows did tell him a week earlier that saving pasty politicians was an honor, but Chanyeol had frowned and finished his wine before passing out on the couch.

And yet, they would like to see the Piper try.

“We could be the Three Musketeers,” Burrows coughs, pouring himself a glass of orange juice. “You know, as long as I can put on a fake beard.”

“Why don’t you just grow one?” Park asks inquisitively.

“My mother would kill me,” Burrows deadpans.

“If he surpasses the two hundred mark, then we’ll have to initiate martial law,” Yagami muses.

Park swipes the remote out of his hand and shuts off the television before handing the man a flute of champagne. “They should have initiated it earlier. What if the killer’s a schizophrenic school teacher? No one would know unless they searched every house.”

“And then you’ve got the ones living on the streets,” Burrows adds. “To figure out their movements and hiding places, you’d have to comb through the homeless networks in the city. In other words, impossible if you’re not a siren.”

“Or a piper,” Yagami chuckles. “It’s after the Pied Piper that he’s named after, yes?”

Park and Burrows nod. “A lot of the operatives think the name was a mistake. The guy’s never killed inside a club, or at least any place that’s musically inclined,” Park claims.

“One folk bar, and suddenly he’s the Pied Piper’s bastard, Swedish son,” Burrows sighs.

“Why not a woman?” Yagami asks politely.

“It’s still on the books,” Park remembers, “but the guys on the fourth floor of the central office don’t believe it could be a ‘she.’ Some of the men murdered were close to three hundred pounds, with no bullets to subdue them. The three that were actual streetfighters were stabbed to death before being dismembered and thrown into the lake.”

“And no defensive wounds on the big ones,” Burrows nods.

“Not even the accidental type,” Park points out. “It’s like they took its hand and walked off, only to end up washed up on one of the coasts, or strung up like a ragdoll.”

Burrows’ opens himself a bag of Doritos, passing a few to Park, who munches on them eagerly. “She could be a prostitute, if it’s a she, but the rest of the M.O doesn’t match unless she has a line of accomplices under her thumb. Some of the places hit were high-end. Not even a hooker would’ve been able to weasel in without some exclusive company representing her.”

“And all the call-girl agencies were very cooperative,” Park adds, “so there’s no way any of their lot is doing the work.”

“So the lady percentage drops dramatically, because if it isn’t a prostitute, then it can’t be anyone else.” Burrows licks his fingers of the Dorito dust before downing the rest of his orange juice. “Unless you’re thinking it’s a politician’s daughter or wife, but then we’d be accusing the very people who paid for us to get here, and I don’t think you boys wanna get kicked off the case, though I wouldn’t be opposed to such a travesty.”

Park snorts and grabs the decanter to pour himself another shot while a thick blanket of snow covers the hotel room balcony. Yagami’s eyes have long drifted away to other things before falling on the glass door leading outside. He gazes upon a flurry of white and gray. The background is a vague plethora of colors. Those colors are lights, of buildings, of shipyard markers, evidence that the city still functions and that its people are still alive. Yes, a few hundred of have gone missing, and sometimes they’re gang-related, other times they’re random homicides, and sometimes, they’re a madman’s art, but it’s only a few hundred. A few hundred is nothing compared to a few million.

Hundreds of people are routinely murdered because of reasons as petty as forgetting to pay forty yen back to the local loan shark. Sometimes the debtors’ daughters are grabbed off the streets and returned to their fathers naked and beaten, their dignities robbed and their faces swollen. Those deaths are so easily ignored. Yagami has seen them be pushed aside. You should have paid them back, they would say. She should have run faster, they would add. It’s one of the reasons he transferred to trafficking a week after being on the job, courtesy of his dear mother.

Yagami thinks they deserve this. Interpol, that is. Not even the Yakuza or the multitude of triads have been able to instill the kind of fear in people like the Midnight Piper has. The city of the best packaged hashish, the city that invites all foreigners to its tables, that sucks the very monsters of the world dry of their cash reserves and their soul- the city that never stops. The city should have lost revenue after the murders went public, the boys on the fourth floor repeated like a mantra. But the city did not, and the city would not.

That which attracts one kind of monster, attracts all kinds of monsters. New York City, Tokyo, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur- they’re all the same.

Shuya remembers the first time he’d seen Gorn. They were in a grocery mart in Osaka, and Shuya had just bought salad items for his mother when he saw a tall, stick-like figure milling around the fruit aisle. A thin, brittle hand shakily took possession of an orange, and one by one, placed them into a basket. Shuya counted twenty-four. Of course, at the time, he hadn’t known it was the poison-maker his mother never stopped talking about, but at that moment, Shuya was mesmerized. Probably as mesmerized as the men who’d followed the Piper to their death.

“So the M.O, at least, is a male killer’s,” Burrows concludes, scratching his nose. “But that poison-maker was a guy, so we could have another special case here.”

“It’s a man,” Yagami says, remembering the cloudy white eye and the twisted smile. “Isn’t that what the homeless man said?”

“He said it looked like a guy who looked like a girl,” Park corrects, “so I doubt we can take his observations seriously.”

“It’s the best we’ve got.” Burrows sighs.

“We just threatened a murderer into thinking we’re on to him, when we’re not.” Yagami smirks. “It can only get worse now.”

“At the expense of all these lives that are about to be taken?” Burrows guffaws.

“Worth it if it doesn’t hit two hundred,” Yagami points out.

“What’s so damn important about two hundred.” Park faceplants on one of the beds.

Burrows chuckles while Yagami takes a sip of his drink. “Poison-maker told our boy here that he’d have to kiss him if the Piper made it to two hundred.”

Park gags. “Aren’t his lips burnt or something?”

“Melted flat,” Burrows recalls from the police report. “Had difficulty with speech, didn’t he, Shuya?”

Yagami nods, finishing the champagne before placing the flute on the coffee table.

The soft click of the glass hitting the coaster is nothing compared to the soft press of expensive leather soles on the beige carpet. The room tenses, even Burrows, who usually has the lethargic ease of a man in his fifties rather than his actual mid-thirties, straightens his back and puts on his brightest smile.

“He’ll kill within the week.” The voice rings clear, but teasing. It’s a merry tone, one that doesn’t belong in such an environment, but the higher ups said they’d had to comb through thousands of confidential files to find this particular monster.

“Never thought we’d hear from you again, Boss,” Burrows hums. Park throws the newcomer a large grin.

“I’m assuming you enjoyed the broadcast,” Yagami tests, still not sure where he stands with the younger man, though he knows it’s not anywhere pleasant.

“A bit too ambiguous for my taste, but it did the job,” he shrugs.

“So what next, sir?” Park asks eagerly.

Yagami and the rest rise as the man steps into the light, still brushing snowflakes off his jacket, his hat and scarf grasped casually in his hands. “Kill him before he kills you,” he grins.

Jong Dae throws them the peace sign and heads for the wet bar.

*******

Wu Fan jolts awake at a quarter to three. Rubbing his heavy eyes, he feels for his phone before finding it on top of the magazine he was reading before going to bed. He fully turns to his side, as not to disturb Minseok, before clicking it awake and typing in the passcode. There, he notes that there are five new messages, all of them from Yixing. He taps the accountant’s profile to see what he’d hoped wouldn’t come to light until later.

Lu Han had been in the emergency room, getting his stomach pumped.

Wu Fan reads the list of alcohols the older man had drank after the dinner party, and also the fact that he’d hid bottles in Yixing’s bathroom so he could drink them in secret and then store the cans in the trash before taking it out in the morning.

Wu Fan stares at the time. It’s only been a few hours since he’d seen them and Jong Dae home. Jong Dae had taken a cab, and Yixing had drove his fiance back to his house.

Now hospital, judging by the fury in the accountant’s texts.

“What’s wrong?” Startled, Wu Fan turns back to a bleary eyed Minseok, yawning and mussed with sleep.

“It’s Lu Han,” he sighs.

“Alcohol?” Minseok murmurs. Wu Fan sighs in response. He spies the snow out the window as the blustery wind shake the house. “I’ll drop you off,” he adds.

Wu Fan wants to kiss him thank you, but his heart’s not into it, and Minseok, he knows, can feel his distress. A warm hand cups his cheek, and he feels a kiss soften the chilled skin. Wu Fan gives him a grateful smile.

They get dressed in silence, and Wu Fan grabs a quick brush before going to check in on the boys. Sehun and Jongin sleep slumped next to each other, a shared quilt draped over their shoulders. Wu Fan quietly shuts the door behind him before heading downstairs.

Minseok is on the phone and speaking urgently. After another ten seconds, he clicks shut the handset and stuffs it into his pocket before grabbing Wu Fan’s gloved hand.

They walk out, fingers locked.

 

 

*******

If anyone ever asked Minseok why he ended up the way he did, he’d tell them it was his unfortunate luck of being born under a bad sun.

That is to say, he was born on a snowy evening in Danderyds hospital to Korean War refugees who’d been smuggled in by teary eyed socialites and businessmen who were at odds with the world from the comfort of their damask chairs. Minseok’s parents and a hundred or so others had essentially paired off and disbanded once they’d caught on to the language and practices of the country they would now be living in. Almost half went to work in the farmlands up North, a source of income for the Swedes who’d aided them in their escapes, and therefore, a place with guaranteed work and basic human rights. A small portion had gone off to make their living from the opportunities offered in the red light districts littered across Stockholm province. Finally, there were the stragglers, meaning, the homosexuals, if they weren’t able to conceal their nature, the eunuchs, the limbless, and the mentally ill who eventually ended up either dead or in locked basements of perverts with tastes for foreign flesh.

And then there were Minseok’s parents.

Mommy and Daddy Kim were originally from Busan, their accents thick and slurred, unlike the more common dialects Minseok eventually came to be exposed to during the advent of the internet. Daddy was a fisher, and Mommy the proud owner of a stall in a fish market that used to exist along the coast of the Malaren near central Stockholm, before it was destroyed and the strip reserved for boats and tourists who wanted to take pictures of the lake’s glistening waters. Minseok remembered spending his early years alternating between his mother’s stall and his father’s fishing spot before he was enrolled into school. Then, up until he was sixteen, days were spent learning and being kicked and beaten for being overweight and having eyes that looked different from theirs, yet even after he’d come home with bruises and bloodies lips, he’d still find a way to help out at the stall or at the spot his father spend hours grueling after scuttling fish.

Somewhere along the way, when Minseok was twelve, his mother gave birth to a second child, a pink little thing they named Sehun. In his fairly short, yet bleak tenure as a human being, Minseok was graced with the presence of the child. And his parents, his parents were so proud when Minseok took to taking care for the boy on his off days and after he finished school, changing his nappies, feeding him, teaching him words in both Swedish and Korean before settling him down for naps. His parents, oh his darling parents, how hard they worked those years trying to provide for two growing boys and for themselves, but they had Minseok, at least, and Minseok made sure the baby was never a problem, so long as they put food on the table.

And they did, God rest their souls, even if they were a violent pair.

Rewind, and Minseok remembered the first time his father almost bludgeoned his head against the pier when Minseok had spilled all the hot coffee from his canteen. Really, Minseok had only wanted a taste of the warm liquid, since it was so very cold that evening, but he’d accidentally dropped the canister in the snow, and watched as the dark liquid colored itself brown against the base of the white snow below.

Daddy threw Minseok against the pier and raised the canister above his head. Perhaps there was a god, since the thing didn’t come down.

Mommy was another brand of crazy. Through his years, Minseok lost count of how many times Mommy had melted poisonous mushrooms into poisonous mushroom soup, and then coated purchased fish with it for buyers who loved to give her a hard time. Of course she diluted it with several other agents before glazing the fish, so that no death could be totaled back to her, but she did sometimes stand in front of the boiling pot of fungus with a spoon and bowls full of rice that would be eventually fed to the family. Luckily, she never doused their dinners.

The second time Daddy almost killed Minseok was when Daddy almost killed Mommy.

Really, it was neither of their fault. Mommy had been mugged earlier in the evening, and lost the day’s earnings, so Daddy didn’t have enough money for food. For some reason, Mommy thought it was best to come to the pier where Daddy’s boat was parked to explain to him the situation, and so their shouting match in Korean warded off the natives and the workers who wanted nothing to do with the family full of illegal immigrants. Needless to say, the fight worsened enough to a point where Daddy slapped Mommy hard enough to knock her off her feet. Then he went to bash her face against the wooden planks, until Minseok jumped on top of her head and the fist that came barreling down on him stopped a centimeter from his skull.

One would think a third-time’s-the-charm kind of thing was at play here. Maybe there was, but who knew? The second time was when Minseok was ten, and two years later, Sehun was cooing in his arms, and his chubby little fingers were the baby’s favorite thing to hold on to. There was never a third time.

Sehun was seven and sleeping in his room in their little hut when Minseok asked Mommy to come outside while hiding an axe behind his back. She was easy, having been thin and brittle, after yeas of little food and constantly bending over in her stall and selling her wares. Daddy came out minutes later to see a crushed skull and bone fragments on the snow before something cleanly took his head off his shoulder and ended it at last.

Don’t get it twisted, Minseok would say, if he was ever asked. He wasn’t crazy.

Mommy and Daddy Kim never raised a hand against Sehun, for which he was thankful for, but then again, they never laid a hand on Minseok either. Whether it was sheer luck or a God pulling nasty little strings, Minseok didn’t know and he didn’t care. All that mattered was that Mommy and Daddy did well. They never gave Minseok bruises like the children did when he was younger, even if Daddy did almost kill him twice, and Mommy the whole family, before Sehun, at least a few hundred times. Minseok knew it was rage; Minseok  _understood_  the gravity of human emotions. Yet, it had to accounted for that Minseok, in the end, did not  _have_ emotions.

Blatant lie. Of course I have emotions, Minseok would say, if they ever asked. Sehun was tucked into bed with a volume of Naruto pulled to his chest and dreaming about ninjas and heroes, and all the other creative things little kids liked to dream about. Of course Minseok had emotions.

Minseok just didn’t like them getting in the way.

It was always there, regardless of what the internet said. People like Minseok were one-in-a-million, but when they decided they wanted to be heard, the other 999,999 suddenly got in line and followed orders to the T. Sometimes they were generals, other times they were businessmen, doctors, and even musicians.

But Minseok liked to cook and drink various kinds of coffee, so Minseok wanted to be a foodie. Because food was amazing, and after Sehun was born, he’d given more than half his share to the latter, even when he was too young to eat more than five or six spoonfuls of rice gruel. But the more the boy ate, the thinner and gaunter Minseok became, but it was for a cause. His baby was growing up to be a healthy boy, and he, in return, was wasting away like he always knew he would.

At sixteen, Minseok enrolled in a nearby culinary institute to learn how to cook. His path to earning a spot on the roster was through a brilliantly crafted latte he’d had clandestinely added a few drops of his mother’s diluted mushroom poison to. No one died, but everyone enjoyed it. And thus, for three years, Minseok learned how to cook and make good coffee while working off his debt by cleaning up and working in the institute on off days. On weekends, he would even sit Sehun behind the coffee bar and have him read manga and comic books while he slaved away and lost even more mass from his already fragile bones. But the luster in his eyes only brightened and gleamed with each hour of each day. Those few years, Minseok understood true happiness.

The issue arose when he could no longer cook or make coffee to assuage the urge to kill himself.

Truthfully, Minseok didn’t understand  _why_  he wanted so badly to use the carrot peeler to flay off the skin of his fingers when he was so thoroughly opposed to pain. Yet, on a particularly rough day, a customer threw a blended smoothie at his face while Sehun looked upon horrified, and so he cleaned himself up and persuaded the boy to return to his comic, before retreating to the mens’ room to stab himself with the tip of a sharpened graphite pencil.

It hurt, and that was the end of it. He pulled the offending article out of his arm and imagined it pinned in one of the eyesockets of the perpetrator, preferably after he scooped his eyeballs out with a small ice cream scoop. That was the moment he shockingly realized he didn’t want the pain inflicted on himself, but on others, and most preferably those who simply could not exist in the happy world he was creating for himself and his baby.

I lied, Minseok would chuckle, if they ever asked. OK, maybe not a lie, but definitely a misconception, he’d correct himself, if they ever asked.

The urge to walk into incoming traffic had always been there. Minseok was six when he saw that the other side of the street was devoid of human beings, and he wanted to go, go without caring for the bus headed his way.

Of course he cared about the bus. He wanted to see if the bus could do what he thought buses could do to fat, little children, and if whether or not he’d go splat!

He didn’t, because Mommy’s hand had grabbed the cuff of his raggedy blue jacket and yanked him back so quickly, he heard something audibly crack. Yet, there was a sense of calm when his small feet hit the gray cement of the road and the cyclist swerved around his rotund shape and lashed curses as him. There was a vague sense of peace that overcame his tiny soul, and he realized, very early on in life, that peace was always just around the corner from where one lived, so as long as they could calm themselves long enough to walk into incoming traffic. Or in the path of a madman. Either way, peace was waiting, it was waiting and it was calling for Minseok.

But the pain wouldn’t have lasted long, Minseok knew, so why carrot peelers, and stick pins, and needles, and boiling water? Why not a jump into the lake, naked and freezing in twelve degree weather? Numbness would take over, and peace would be upon his soul, once and for all.

But that wasn’t enough, Minseok would admit wistfully, if they ever asked. It wouldn’t be enough, because he wouldn’t be able to do it again. He was too greedy to believe that kind of peace was only granted once. No. Minseok wanted to be able to have that peace as much as he wanted, and the only way to obtain it was to make others feel that peace. If they felt it, then they could share it with him, whether they liked it or not. And that, dear readers, is what Minseok really came to understand when he flushed the offending article down the toilet and smiled blissfully to himself.

He came out of the bathroom grinning from ear to ear, the wound hidden underneath his white uniform shirt, already bandaged with paper towels. He beamed at the quiet boy who sat morosely sipping from a juice box. When he caught his eye, the boy jumped off his chair and flung himself into his arms. Sehun cried into his apron while Minseok stroked his hair and whispered soothingly of the great meal he was going to make him and the family when they went home in a few hours. In response, the boy told him that he would kick the ugly man’s butt if he ever tried to hurt his hyung again.

At that moment, Minseok came to terms with his understanding that Sehun was not merely his brother. No, no he was not. Sehun was his baby, his child. Sehun was his son, and for this small thing, he’d starve out for the rest of his days so that the boy could go on living happily. Peace was what he wanted in his life, but more than that, it’s what he wanted Sehun to have. But he knew, deep down, Sehun wasn’t ready for that peace, and never would be. But that was OK, because Minseok wasn’t crazy. The child would reap the benefits of Minseok’s revelation. And what were those benefits? A great father, good food, and a nice, long cup of hot chocolate, courtesy of Kim Minseok. He’d known it all along, but he could never really accept it, not when Mommy and Daddy were still around.

So Mommy and Daddy had to go.

Really, Minseok would say if they ever asked, I didn’t feel anything for them at that point, so why not get rid of the bastards?

Needless to say, Mommy was Minseok’s first friend, and the only female. Daddy was second, and prototype for many that would come later.

Lies you tell, Minseok would find himself muttering to himself, if they ever asked. Of course he thought Daddy was a prototype, but in the end, that also turned out to be a farce. He would later find out that anything and everything would do, so as long as it wasn’t a girl, since they really weren’t the most satisfying (Mommy left an empty impression, unfortunately).

Seven year old Sehun woke up in the morning to find that the hut was burning, and that he was coughing, and that his hyung was slumped asleep next to him. Of course Minseok wasn’t, but he wanted the boy to understand that even in the face of death, he’d always be there for him. Sehun cried and shook him, and Minseok pretended to wake up and pretended he had no idea that a fire had started in the kitchen and would soon make its way through the whole hut. Minseok, on impact, pretended to look for Mommy and Daddy, pretended he couldn’t find them (he knew exactly where he buried the bastards), packed up the few belongings the two boys shared, hoisted Sehun onto his back, and scurried out as far his thin legs could take him. That day, the world burned.

At least, that world did. That old world, with mushrooms and fish and unnecessary screaming. Today, Minseok can’t stand the taste of those things, and never, ever buys them.

Our old life burned and I smiled, Minseok would tell them, if they asked. Of course, Sehun didn’t see it, since he was too busy crying, but Minseok had his private smile that he only shared with the lake.

Really. He didn’t think his actions would bring about consequences so grave, but they did. He was nineteen, really an adult, and he could provide for himself and the boy if he tried, and he knew he could. Yet the government didn’t believe him, and within hours, Sehun was taken in by protection services, and he was left in the police station, being told that the child would be placed into a good home while he, a deadbeat cook and barista with still a year left in culinary scchool, could go find himself a hostel for boys and live out his pitiful life because no one wanted a stick-thin foreigner in their house if he couldn’t even pick up a box or four.

Yet, for two years, Minseok fought tooth and nail, and worked on his certificate while still earning daily visitation rights from the system that didn’t even have mercy for its natives, much less children of immigrants. But he fought, and he fought, and Sehun told him one of the new caretakers wouldn’t stop staring at him at the orphanage, and Minseok succeeded in his third outing using a fillet knife and cutting board he’d stolen from the institute’s kitchens.

And then, they’d found a family.

A nice Chinese family, the system said. Ostermalm residents, it said. Father was a billionaire who owned a conglomerate, and one of the few foreign families whose wealth surpassed those of native Swedes. But they were third generation, the caseworker explained, and they had connections to the best schools and facilities the prime minister’s own children couldn’t even get into. The child would be safe, she advised. The child would have a father.

But I'm was Sehun’s father, Minseok thought. Sehun was his baby, his child, his brother- his everything. If he was gone, then Minseok was nothing.

But then the caseworker proceeded to blurt out all the opportunities Sehun would have, besides educational prospects. Sehun would have playmates. The family had servants who lived with them that had children Sehun’s age. Sehun would have siblings. He would have two older brothers, specifically, so Minseok could be rest assured that his presence could be easily replaced with that of the other boys, because Sehun was still at an impressionable age and, really, Minseok didn’t want the boy to cry for him forever, now did he?

He would have a room to himself. He would have all the manga and comic books in the world, and it would be out by the water, but now, it would be on the third or fourth floor of a mansion in Ostermalm. Sehun would have a new mommy and a daddy, and with that, new brothers, new sisters, and finally, friends. Sehun would have friends, and Sehun would be happy.

And there wasn’t a thing in that repertoire Minseok could offer, except his love. But those days, even that wasn’t enough to keep families together.

At that moment, I could’ve turned it off, walked out, and come back at night to take Sehun away without them knowing, Minseok would tell them, if they asked.

And he could have. Minseok could have, but instead, he left them on, and all he did was feel. He felt the burden of having a family he couldn’t provide for, and for once, he understood _why_ Mommy stood in front of that pot all those nights, a spoon in her hand and bowls in front of her, bowls that had the fish and the rice, and if they had even a spoonful of the poison liquid, it would kill them before they could even spit it out.

But Minseok wasn’t a bastard like Mommy or Daddy. Minseok could never hurt Sehun. Minseok could hurt the caretaker who wouldn’t stop staring, but Minseok could never hurt Sehun.

But he could hurt himself.

Once he was dead, the system would automatically give up the child to the family, and the orphanage would maybe even get itself a nice donation for its truly valiant efforts. And really, who cared about the deadbeat with no future in a world with no mercy? He majored in food, they would have said. He was nothing.

Minseok knew he would never amount to much, but his family- his everything -was all he had. Mommy and Daddy were gone now, forever. If only he’d been able to love them, then maybe they could still be together as a family. If only he’d just felt  _bad_.

But the truth was, Mommy and Daddy were soaked in a lime pit Minseok had been studying in his off time, and their bones were thrown into the lovely Malaren after he fished them out once the skin tissue had dissolved. Their blooded clothes burned with the hut, and Minseok felt nothing, not a damn thing as their life turned to ashes before his very eyes.

If I’d turned them off, it would’ve never found me, and I would’ve taken Sehun and gotten out of the city, Minseok would admit, if they ever asked.

But he hadn’t. He’d left them on, and decided he was going to jump into the same lake that became Mommy and Daddy’s final resting place. He didn’t expect any forgiveness, but he thought it would be a fitting end for the son to go where his mother and father went. A watery grave, Minseok thought. A wonderful, watery peace. He always did love the Malaren.

It had made the sound of a crying woman, and Minseok’s heart fluttered. He didn’t like to see women cry. They looked oddly like children, which reminded him of Sehun. Except Mommy. Mommy cried like she laughed.

He’d made it ten steps away from the edge of the bluff, and asked if everything was OK and if help was needed. There were many bluffs to choose to jump from. He could afford walking a woman to the hospital and then trekking to another bluff to complete his mission.

But it wasn’t a woman who was crying, and it was the last time Minseok would ever doubt his power to turn those retched things off.

It grasped his arm with thin, black hands, flickering in the pale moonlight. Shocked brown eyes met a pair of tear streaked ones, and Minseok saw that it was a man. It was a man, roughly his age with creamy white skin, and he was crying, crying so much, that Minseok thought it impossible that a person could cry so much.

“Please, please don’t go,” it said.

It, being the operative word, Minseok would say, if they ever asked.

Why ‘it?’ It was in Minseok’s understanding that the world had many strange creatures, but even stranger people. But never before had he met someone with eyes as red and bright as it that fateful night.

Minseok had froze and asked why. Really, he had to. When those things were turned on, he said the darnedest things. Like ask questions to a thing with exceptionally thin black limbs, but a pasty white face and terribly red eyes.

Its cracked lips curved into a weary smile, and it replied, “because I love you.”

And that, Minseok would laugh, if they ever asked, is how I met Sehun’s mother. No, but really, he would go on to explain, that was essentially the deal.

And so, Minseok’s emotions told him to step away from the bluff and take the thing’s offer, and the very next day, shiny papers stamped with a dozen seals gave Minseok back his baby brother and they cried in each others arms in front of the whole orphanage as the caseworker grimaced.

Then a shiny blue car came around, and the door opened for them to get in. Sehun looked at Minseok with a bewildered expression, and through the pain in his chest, he nodded at Sehun to get in. But before he could, their host sauntered out of his seat and came up to Sehun with a bright smile on his face. He crouched down and held out his hand for Sehun to shake.

“You must be Minseok’s best friend,” he said teasingly.

Sehun managed a shy smile and shook the pale white hand. “My name’s Sehun.”

He-  _it_  -smiled, and Minseok shut off his emotions and devised ten different ways to disembowel the piece of shit, only to realize it was useless, and turned them back on, only to feel morose and weak. It noticed his distress and arose to envelop him in a hug. Minseok mentally gagged.

“Let’s be a family from now on, OK?” It beamed at Sehun, while its arms were still wrapped around Minseok. Sehun had smiled brightly for the first time in two years, and Minseok was ruminating on life choices he should have pondered more extensively. Sehun then said yes.

Two pairs of hopeful eyes looked to him, and he cracked a wavering smile. Sehun joined the hug and they stood, just like that, in front of all the onlookers. Then they entered the car, one by one, with Sehun getting a seat by the window, and drove off to their new life.

And while Sehun laughed at the blast of fresh air, its hand found Minseok’s and held it firmly, like a wife would her husband’s. Minseok let it be and instead indulged Sehun’s million questions.

Suho never stopped smiling.

*******

Of course, if anyone ever asked, Minseok would say that it was a moment of weakness which prompted him to indulge the thing, but shyly, he would admit that without its help, he would never have met Wu Fan.

Wu Fan, who was supposed to be his victim that evening, but became his companion instead. Wu Fan, who should have been butchered behind the painted partition, but instead became Minseok’s anchor in a sea of blood.

Wu Fan is the key to my heart, Minseok would sigh, if anyone ever asked. Sehun was his child, but every family needed a parental unit, and for the longest time, Minseok had to do with the thing that quaintly named itself Suho.

But then Wu Fan came along. Minseok’s heart, or what was left of it, became something so much more. Wu Fan shouldn’t have been able to come in to quickly, but he did, and for the first time in a long time, Minseok willingly allowed himself to feel.

I’ll kill it, Minseok would say, if  _they_  asked. Interpol, Minseok would add. If Interpol asked. I’ll kill it, and then it’ll be just me, Wu Fan, and Sehun, Minseok would smile.

But Minseok also knows that, that can never be, and that, no, they would never ask. Not because they couldn’t, of course, they had mouths and the ability to make sounds and speak like many other persons in the world. That wasn’t the case.

Demons just don’t exist in the real world, Minseok would say conversationally. If they did, he would snort, don’t you think you would have caught me already?

 

*******

Yixing’s hand doesn’t want to let go, even if his brain is screaming for him to leave.

“You can’t just leave your boyfriend to die, Xingie,” Jong Dae tuts, sipping on his hospital coffee, which reeks of smuggled bourbon.

“Are you trying to end up on a bed too?” Wu Fan deadpans, arms crossed against his chest. He's been here four hours, Yixing six, and Jong Dae two and a half. 

“I’m trying to keep myself from breaking down in manly sobs,” Jong Dae corrects.

“Did you even get any sleep?” Yixing asks, eyes still trained on Lu Han’s dozing form.

“Nope,” the photographer replies, taking another hearty sip of the liquid drink.

“You know, when he wakes up, he’s just going to go right back to sleep,” the nurse warns, adjusting the straps of his IV. “So you boys can go home now.”

Yixing knows they should, but his hand, shockingly, still refuses to let go. Thankfully, Jong Dae’s there to the rescue. Minutes later, they find themselves in Yixing’s car with Wu Fan in the driver’s seat, taking them to the little breakfast place near the pier.

“I don’t know what to do,” Yixing blinks, once they’re in their seats and breakfast is piled in front of them.

“We could just force him into rehab,” Jong Dae suggests. “After I came back from my third tour, my ex-girlfriend told me she’d throw me out on into the street if I didn’t get expensive help.”

“Did you?” Wu Fan asks.

“Nope,” he replies, happily stuffing scrambled eggs into his mouth.

“We need to get to the root of the problem first,” Yixing says seriously.

“That’s easy,” Wu Fan guffaws, “he’s having family flashbacks.”

“But he has those every month,” Jong Dae points out, “and he doesn’t always get ridiculously shit-faced, just regular shit-faced.”

“Kyungsoo’s a therapist,” Wu Fan offers. “Maybe he can help him sort out his issues, once and for all.”

“That would be good,” Yixing mumbles into his glass of water. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to help him if he doesn’t let me.”

“You just have to fight,” Wu Fan tells him, “fight and force him to get help. He’ll get angry, but no one has the time for that anymore. He’s a grown man. He needs to take responsibility.”

“For his alcoholism, or his issues?” Jong Dae asks seriously, guzzling down a glass of apple juice.

“I’d say both, but I have a feeling there’s more.” Yixing twiddles his thumb. “Did he ever tell you guys about the ghost?”

Wu Fan blinks while Jong Dae drops his fork. “He told you about that?” They ask in unison.

Yixing flushes. “Of course he did. I’m his boyfriend.”

Jong Dae crinkles his nose. “I just thought he was extra drunk that day.”

“He told me about that when we first met,” Wu Fan remembers, “but he never mentioned it again.”

Jong Dae shakes his head. “Are you seriously telling me our BFF is currently being haunted by the grudge? Seriously, guys, is that what I’m hearing right now? I’ve gotta be drunk.”

Yixing doesn’t want to remind him that he’s always drunk, but he does want to say that it’s more than likely something worse. “It’s probably not that,” he manages weakly. 

“Not the ghost,” Wu Fan agrees. “I remember concluding it was an imaginary friend.”

“Who gave him nightmares,” Yixing agrees.

“And who’s not a ghost,” Jong Dae adds. “Seriously, guys, I’m all for creepy crawlies, but a ghost? Even if we had a resident ghoul in the house, why the hell is it following Lu Han? All Lu Han does is drink and fuck you, Yixing, and if he’s not doing that, he’s drinking with us. I say it’s stress and the weddings.” Jong Dae gives the two men his most judgmental stare. “I told you bastards to keep the weddings a year apart, but nooooo, everyone jumped on the I-wanna-do-it-two-weeks-apart bandwagon because the caterer said it was cheaper. Now look what you did!”

Yixing gawks throws a piece of toast at the offending photographer’s face while Wu Fan rubs the bridge of his nose. “Either way, he’s getting help,” he manages to say.

“Regardless of what he wants.” Yixing thinks it’s time to dive into the savings.

“And we should empty out his apartment before they send him home,” Wu Fan adds. “I have spares to the liquor cabinet.”

“He gave you spares?” Jong Dae gasps.

“We’ll give them to Minseok for safekeeping,” Yixing concludes. “He’ll keep them until after the weddings.”

With that, they finish their meal and begin to head out until they realize a crowd’s formed around twenty yards from the eatery they were just in.

“The fuck?”

Farther down the pier, policemen and province-regulated vehicles separate the small mass of people from a white tent billowing in the soft morning light. The snow beneath their feet is five inches tall and still fresh from the night’s blizzard, but already there are footprints left and right. They hadn’t even noticed that the eatery's car park had filled up, but then again, only few of the owners were patrons of the restuarant while rest went to mill around the swelling mass.

“Another body,” Yixing gripes in disgust.

“There’s something more,” Jong Dae says silently, and they know he’s right because the crowd just gets bigger, and it’s been almost four years since people have gathered this much over a Piper killing.

They don’t notice it until the sobs ring out and their face turn to their left.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Yixing breathes in horror.

*******

It’s not to say that they didn’t have souls, because they did. Perhaps they even went in peace. Yagami doesn’t know, and neither do Burrows and Park. The autopsy results will later tell them whether or not the torture was inflicted pre or postpartum, but for now, there’s crowd control in motion and spirits dampening.

Park taps him on the shoulder and discreetly motions to where Kim Jong Dae is standing rigidly with people Yagami’s never seen before. But Jong Dae is here, and his face is so utterly devoid of emotion that Yagami thinks that the Piper’s finally done it. He’s lured out the beast.

Burrows and six of the forensic specialists begin to take down the cross composed of different body parts. Eyeless pits, white lips, and no dignity. Several genitals are strung together to make a wreath and several garlands for the head in the middle, its cheeks ripped to resemble a frown.

And then there are real flowers. Fresh, blue violets. Wreaths of flowers adorn the wooden cross upon which the parts are pinned to, and there’s a stench of beauty and death, all wrapped into one. The crying doesn’t stop, and the sun continues to beat down on their backs as the snow beneath their boots remains.

Yagami thinks he can count six different bodies, maybe seven or eight, but they’re all fresh. Jong Dae had said within the week. Yagami counts maybe fourteen hours since the first broadcast. Fourteen hours, so many parts. So many bodies.

So many souls.

“Jong Dae’s gone with his people, but central just buzzed in to say that the Americans have cleared him for duty.” Park states urgently, his eyes trained on Burrows and the others who are carefully disassembling the pieces and bagging them accordingly.

“How many tours did you say he served again?”

“Five,” Park recites, “with the fifth being conditional and confidential.”

“And what do those confidential files say?” Yagami asks politely his gaze falling over the officers attempting to stave off the fishers who stared open-eyed at the cross.

Park doesn’t miss a beat.“He’s the one who pitched the idea to use you as bait to catch Bregcrift.”

“And he’s the one who put me on the case?” Yagami questions.

“No,” Park responds softly, letting out a soft breath once the cross is completely disassembled. “That was the prime minister of France signing a deal with the Japanese emperor. Kim Jong Dae caught Bregcrift in the act, but decided against taking him in because the lack of evidence would have only him put away from twelve murders. Practically a life sentence, but Kim’s personal report details his refusal to act because the death count was over forty and he wanted a full list instead of a, quote unquote, half assed one.”

“So he let ten more people die before he made me catch him,” he concludes.

“Because you were the only one amusing enough for Bregcrift.” Park finishes.

“Because I was amusing enough not to kill.”

“And also because Kim’s crazy,” Burrows interrupts, laughing as he throws his industrial strength gloves into a temporary trash can. “We’ve got the crazy leading the crazy, tryna catch another crazy.”

“Wasn’t Kim court-martialed?” Yagami asks as they begin to walk to their SUV, which clandestinely holds their armed escorts.

“He was sentenced to life and was supposed to serve four years in ADX Florence before being transferred to Poland to serve out the rest,” Park states.

“And who the hell paid for him to get out?” Burrows grumbles, taking the backseat so he could smoke his cigar in peace with the escorts.

“Gorn did,” Yagami finishes. “Gorn agreed to name every victim if Jong Dae was relieved of his charges.”

“And why the hell would he do that?”

“He did give him an opportunity to add ten more victims to his repertoire,” Park points out.

But they all know it’s something simpler than that.

“Well, shit,” Burrows chuckles, realizing the morbidity of the topic. “It’s because he led you back to him.”

Park’s face hardens with grim understanding. “And Kim knew he was in the clear.”

“Like pulling the strings on a marionette,” Yagami sighs as Park pulls the car into gear and out of the uniformed officers’ way. “He wanted all the names, but he knew Gorn would never give them up, so he got the French to strike a deal with us so I could show up to tease the names out of him. Because he knew Gorn would be thankful.”

“Bregcrift’s not a psychopath,” Burrows recalls. “He’s what? A scientist, did he say?”

“An artist,” Yagami corrects. “Gorn was an artist.”

“Is an artist,” Park murmurs.

“And I was his muse,” Yagami finishes.

They drive out onto the expressway and find themselves back on the road towards the hotel. Yagami’s phone vibrates thrice with a text, and when he opens it, he sees that the Swedes have also cleared Kim for duty, and that the Russians and Americans have added to his paycheck. Ten seconds later, the text disappears, just like the others, and all Yagami has in his hand is a phone devoid of contacts and messages.

Only a vessel, a mere tool. A black and grey piece of plastic.

“Kim will catch him,” Burrows says softly. “They’re of the same kind. It won’t take long. A few more bodies, sure, but before the year runs out, we’ll have him in custody.”

“The key is to get to his heart,” Park gripes. “But what does he love?”

“Who,” Yagami corrects. “Who does he love.”

“They can love,” Burrows agrees. “Longfellow loved.”

“And so did Gorn,” Yagami remembers.

But the question still hangs over their head- what does the Midnight Piper love? What does he love enough to kill for? Or maybe he  _can’t_  love, and merely kills because he’s got nothing better to do.

Park would say, he’s a repressed homosexual and all his murders are representations of his fury, as well as his desires.

Burrows would say, the fucker’s a nutjob through and though, and the only way to kill it dead is to kill those it loves dead.

Yagami would say, rather softly, Gorn would know what to do.

Yagami’s phone buzzes again.

**Kim Jong Dae has been cleared by all parties.**

Simple and sweet. Yagami tells his colleagues. His colleagues sigh.

And they know, as they drive back to grab their showers and late breakfasts, that it’s no longer a cat-and-mouse game. It’s a hunt now, and something the world’s been trying to keep suppressed has just been cleared of its crimes, of its sins, of its evil. Such an evil that the world government beckoned only when the Poison-Maker promised to tell the names. All the names. One each year. One each year on his birthday, and only to Shuya. It’s not a game; it’s a stand off.

And Yagami prays for those that the Piper loves.

*******

I’m not saying the world doesn’t have any good in it, Minseok would say, if they ever asked.

_It’s just that I don’t care._

*******

**Author's Note:**

> \- Yagami Shuya's face cast is Takizawa Hideaki.  
> \- Porter Burrows' face cast is Karl Urban.  
> \- La Santé is a max security in France.  
> \- ADX Florence is a supermax prison in the United States.
> 
> And to clarify, this fanfiction takes place in Sweden. Stockholm is the recurring city, along with its suburbs, Blackeberg and Vallingby.


End file.
